Our last big excursion with our students was this past Thursday through Saturday. We travelled to Kumasi, which has been the center of trade in West Africa for centuries. One of the highlights of the trip was the hours we spent in the Kejetia market in the center of town, winding our way through multitudes of shoppers and workers, along rows of market stalls selling food, cloth, shoes made on the premises, used clothing, housewares, hardware, rope, etc. Our first purchase was a length of green rope for a clothes line. Our last was sunglasses for David. In between, we bought cloth and more cloth, mostly batik. Our hotel was only about 3 blocks from the market and was in a neighborhood full of commerce, with shoes spread out on parked cars and merchandise like sunglasses arrayed on boards. In Kumasi the vendors won't let you walk away if you don't like their first price. Shopping is a conversation, with lots of humor involved, and the interaction matters as much as the sale.We also spent time in the center of Kumasi learning about its history by visiting the palace of the Asantahene, the traditional king of the Asante people, and the military museum. The Asante are a pretty fierce bunch and brag of defeating the Italians in Ethiopia and the Japanese in Burma during WWII.
Our third focus was on traditional crafts, with visits to several villages that broke up our arduous trip north—on the main highway linking the two largest cities in Ghana, which right now does not deserve the name “highway.” There are about 20 kilometers of the worst road construction we’ve encountered this time in Ghana: we were on dirt tracks through a blast zone with huge rocks on both sides, and another section felt like driving through a gigantic gravel pit, with 2 story high piles of gravel partially blocking what remains of the road. Even on the smoothly paved sections we were nearly forced onto the shoulder by overloaded trucks coming right at us: the highway is two lanes wide at best, and often there are large chunks of asphalt missing on the sides.
As we approached Kumasi, we left the main road to visit three villages where beads and crafts were made. The artisans in these villages originally produced goods for Asante royalty and continue to create work to high standards. My favorite was the first village, Abompe, where we learned bauxite bead making by following a guide down narrow paths from home to home, visiting bead makers and polishers. Bauxite—the mineral from which aluminum is made—was reportedly found by a hunter in the hills nearby more than a century ago, and villagers still make twice-weekly treks on foot to dig it up. In that village, we also visited a compound where several young men have a workshop making bamboo bike frames. We had no idea before we arrived that bamboo bike making was a cottage industry in rural Ghana! As I expected, David is now looking into getting a bamboo frame in his size that he can ship home. We also watched cloth being made in small villages near Kumasi. The next day we spent two and a half hours at the National Cultural Center in Kumasi, where several different crafts were being demonstrated by artists who have workshops on the grounds and produce work for sale and on commission. Most of the artists we met were working on large orders to be shipped off to customers, in Ghana or abroad, and there was little pressure to buy.On our return to Legon, we avoided the worst stretch of road by taking an alternate route, but then ran into horrible traffic through Adenta and Madina, in our last 20 km or so. When we finally arrived on campus about 7:30, we dropped the students at the dorm, changed our clothes, and immediately headed down into Accra for a concert featuring Adja Koo Nimo, one of the greatest figures of traditional high-life, and George Darko, a more contemporary musician who leads a terrific dance band. It was a great way to top off the visit by next year’s Calvin in Ghana program, Stephanie Sandberg. I think she got a good overview of the work involved and the good times available here.
As of today, I have only two weeks left in Ghana, which does not seem long enough for all the things I want to do. We are thinking that we will not do much traveling during our free time but instead spend a little time up on the ridge, relaxing in Akropong, and some time getting things organized and packed up here, so that David will not have too much to do on his own in the two weeks that remain before he and the students depart. It will be hard to leave, but worth it, since I am leaving early in anticipation of the birth of our first grandchild in Philadelphia.
